After traveling around Thailand for a week, my family collectively grew tired of eating Thai food. I thought I loved Thai, embracing papaya salad everyday, but I think the endless buffets (thanks to the pre-booked tours) quickly bored our palates. I never tired of mango & sticky rice though, but it never really occurred to me that Thai cuisine isn’t as diverse as Vietnamese cuisine. SHOTS FIREDDDD. Jaykay. Such a first world problem, right? It wasn’t until flying into Hanoi did I truly appreciate the cuisine of my peoplez. It’s exponentially more diverse than Thai food, especially due to its influence from its colonial French past & its Chinese neighbors. We’ve got similar desserts based in coconut milk & then we have these amazing cakes & pastries thanks to the French. We have dozens of various noodle soups, while Thailand only has a handful. While most other Asian countries embrace soy sauce in nearly every dish, Thai & Viet food is similar in that both cuisines embrace fish sauce, a highly pungent & salty fermented fish sauce. It’s often mixed with sugar, water, salt, & vinegar as a dipping sauce or dressing. Fish sauce (concentrated, not mixed) has always been my mother’s secret weapon in enhancing any meal whether it was spaghetti or Banh Canh Cua. Also, MSG. She used a lot of MSG, but the point is, whenever her meals needed a major kick in umami, she pulled out a bottle of fish sauce & measured out a tablespoon of it into her dish. Never fails.

We were excited to finally get our hands on some Vietnamese food, exciting our tastebuds with new combinations of flavors & spices we grew up with. I learned that Hanoi’s goi cuon tom (aka summer rolls) is made with a much thinner sheet of rice paper & honestly, it’s more annoying to eat & make. I love summer rolls. I make them at least 3 times a month, no matter the season, because it’s so healthy, fresh, filling, & low in calories. While Hanoi’s (Northern Vietnam) cuisine is much lighter than Saigon’s (Southern Vietnam), it still has some of my personal favorite dishes: Bun Cha & Cha Ca Thang Long. See all of our eats & travel photos below!

If you’ve never heard of this delicious Sichuan dish before, now you have & you’ve seen a picture of it. Of course my rendition of it errs on the traditional meat & tofu dish, but this is still an amazing Chinese dish, which pretty much is a party in your mouth. Probably might even make you sweat a little if you can’t handle the heat. This would not be the greatest recipe to try if you’re in, oh I don’t know, California or Florida right now–the states that completely avoided the Polar Vortex because they defy the laws of Seasons–but if you’re in any of the other 48 states with the exception of parts of Texas, this dish is right up your alley. Autumn is happening & it’s slowly getting chillier with each passing week, so if you’re one of the strange individuals who doesn’t like soup–& apparently I know about at least 3 of you–mapo tofu is a nice solution. This dish is the perfect embodiment of Sichuan cuisine with its usage of their spicy peppercorns, reminiscent to the heatwave that is hammering a drought stricken California or the ever humid Florida. So, eat up this recipe & experience the heat before venturing out to the chilly autumn wind. Even if you’re not a fan of tofu, the sauce is so distinctive in flavor that the tofu won’t even bother you one bit. Not a fan of mushrooms? We’ve already talked about this.

Summer is nearly, kind-of-but-not-really almost over, but that doesn’t mean you still can’t enjoy a refreshing ice pop on a bright & hot sunny day. At the peak of the season, I went on a bit of a fruit binge, so I got a tray of nectarines & peaches to use in my morning smoothies alongside blueberries, raspberries, & strawberries. We got a new blender over a month ago, so I’ve been utilizing all the fruits within my reach to whip up–or blend up, rather–some refreshing & healthy smoothies. You know how it is, gotta get that “daily 5” in somehow! This recipe is simple, healthy, & absolutely kid-friendly, but if there aren’t any kids around I’ve got a solution for that too. Add an extra zing to it by adding peach alcohol – 4-5 shots should be fine. No one will get drunk off the ice pops, don’t worry…that is of course, unless you eat all 10 ice pops in one sitting.

Moving past the lugubrious notion that summer is coming to an end, cheer up with a wonderful smoothie with some seasonal fruit!

Cloudburst is the second mix I put together for my ongoing filler series: Musical Mondays! This mix is much more upbeat than the last one, but not too progressive. This mix is great for background music while you search the internet, play video games, or walking to school. Each mix has its own theme & this mix’s theme is upbeat electro. I hope those that like the genres I drew from will like this mix. I’ve gotten some positive feedback from a few friends, so here’s to hoping it’s also your cup of tea. I annoyingly put it on “autoplay” since most people don’t click things I link like my videos, so now y’all can be annoyed with this mysterious palatable music seeping from your speakers until you figure out it’s because of me. Sorry, not sorry.

These past few weekends in LA with Ben, Jane, Josh, & other special guests have been some of the best well spent weekends of my summer thus far. We’ve all tried some new food, seen new places, learned new things, laughed (live, laugh, love, you GuYsSs), played with cute puppies, played Hobbit on our phones (umm everyone should download this & play with me), blamed each other for being Mafia, subjected to Gerald’s horrendous dog farts, etc. I’m only glad summer is ending because it’ll get cooler. Let’s just say the abominable snowman is my spirit animal because I certainly am not adapted to anything above 25º C (77º F). That perspiration on my skin isn’t sweat, those are tears from my body crying from melting, equivalent to a toddler crying because candy was banned from the household.

Last Saturday, Josh surprised me by taking us to the 626 Night Market, which is a huge event full of hundreds of stalls selling food, goodies, art, drinks, & accessories. The vendors are predominantly of Asian cuisine, which is obviously my favorite–pretty sure there are more pictures of sushi than of people on my website, but I swear I have friends–& Josh’s infatuation with boba & noodles were certainly entertained.